Percy Jackson's Twin Sister Ebony Jackson: The Lightning Thief
by TMIgirl107
Summary: Ebony Jackson and her twin brother Percy, thought they were normal kids. Except, with extremely bad ADHD and dyslexia, how are they normal? Together, they discover how not normal they really are. And being accused of stealing a certain god's lightning bolt, while never having met or seen said god? Definitely not normal kids.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is my first Percy Jackson story, so please tell me how good or bad I am doing. I would really appreciate it! Don't be afraid to point out any grammar or spelling errors.**

 **Oh, and also, I would like the readers to tell me who they want Ebony to be paired with later on, like Will Solace, Nico di Angelo, Leo Valdez, etc. (Not specifically any of these, just putting names out there.)**

Percy Vaporizes Our Pre-Algebra Teacher

Being a half-blood may sound cool, but it isn't. Put this book down now if you think you may be one.

Part of being a half-blood is fighting tons of monsters. And these monsters can get you killed in ways you wouldn't think possible.

My name is Ebony Jackson, twin sister of Percy Jackson.

We are twelve years old, and, until a few months ago, we were students at Yancy Academy, private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.

Are we troubled kids?

Yeah. You could say that.

I could go to any point of our short life to prove it, but things got really bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a trip to Manhattan—twenty-nine mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.

It sounds like torture, as most Yancy field trips were.

But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading the trip so I had hopes.

Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. It doesn't seem like he'd be cool, but he told stories and let us play games in class. He also had a collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher that didn't bore me and put Percy to sleep.

Percy and I had hoped the trip would be okay. Well, at least we hoped that for once we wouldn't get in trouble.

Boy, were we wrong.

See, bad things happen to us on field trips. Like at our fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, Percy had this incident with a Revolutionary War cannon. He said he wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course he got expelled and I with him even though I had not done a thing wrong. And before that, at our fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of Marine World shark pool, I hit a lever at the same time Percy did and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that… Well, you get the idea.

This trip, we were determined to be good.

All the way into the city, we put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of her peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich. Luckily I was not getting hit as I was in the seat across from them.

What kind of person actually likes peanut butter and ketchup together?!

Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. (Lucky Grover.) He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.

Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew Percy and I couldn't do anything because the headmaster had threatened us both with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.

"I'm going to kill her," I heard Percy say under his breath.

"It's okay. I like peanut butter."

"With ketchup?" I asked.

He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch.

"That's it," Percy said. He started to get out of his seat but Grover pulled him into his seat. I sent him a grateful smile.

"You and Ebony are already on probation," he reminded Percy. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."

Of course we did. Him and me, even if I did nothing to get suspended.

Looking back on it, I really wished that Percy would have decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. I gladly would have taken in-school suspension compared to the mess Percy and I were about to get ourselves into.

Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.

He rode up front in his motorized wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.

It was amazing how this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years. But yet, the stuff in the galleries seemed to be a lot older than they are said to.

He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a _stele,_ for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. It was very interesting, and I heard some people talking behind me and occasionally I heard Percy telling them to shut up.

Mrs. Dodds had been glaring at Percy every time he talked. She was this little math teacher from Georgia and always wore this leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She came to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.

From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured we were devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at Percy or me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and then we knew that one of us was going to get after-school detention for a month.

One time, after she had Percy and I erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, Percy told Grove he didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at Percy, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."

Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art. Can we please get to something more interesting, like the food they ate?

Behind me, I heard Nancy snickering. Then, "Will you _shut up?"_

Percy said that, I realize. Well, I guess this field trip is already going in a bad direction.

The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.

"Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"

Percy's face was so red, that had it been any other time, I would have laughed.

"No, sir," he said.

Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"  
I had recognized it immediately as Kronos eating his kids. He can do this, I know he knows it.

Percy looked at the carving. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"

"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because…"

"Well…" Percy said. I mentally face palmed and wanted to scream at him. "Kronos was the king god, and—"

I sucked in a breath, irritated.

"Titan," I said, nudging him.

"Titan," he corrected. "And… he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters—"

"Eeew!" said one of the girls next to me.

I rolled my eyes.

"—and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans. And the gods won," Percy said.

I was impressed that he could fit in such a long complicated war into a sentence.

There were snickers from the group. I was getting irritated. Like they knew what all these things were.

Behind Percy, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"

"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"

"Busted," I heard Grover mutter.

"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.

I was so glad she got into trouble. She never gets into trouble, so I'm thankful for this. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. I swear, this guy has the ears of a horse.

I saw Percy shrug. "I don't know, sir."

"And you, Miss Jackson?"

I was totally unprepared to get asked a question.

"U-uh…" I stuttered. I think really hard, trying not to go brain dead and disappoint Brunner.

"It matters because some of the things we study are parts of our life today, so we need to pay attention to them," I say. "If we don't pay attention to what's going on now and not write it in history books, history may repeat itself," I say, giving him the best answer I could give.

Percy seemed impressed, and Grover was smiling a little.

"I see," said Mr. Brunner. "Well done Miss Jackson. And Mr. Jackson, half credit. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"

The class drifted off, the girls (except me, of course) holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like the doofuses they are. One of them was pushed straight into me, a sort of attractive guy with beach blond hair and blue eyes. He smiled and I rolled my eyes, pushing him away.

"Mr. Jackson," Mr. Brunner said.

Percy told Grover and me to meet him outside. We walked out, talking about some of the things we thought were interesting so far on the museum trip.

When we got outside, a huge storm was brewing. I couldn't help but be nervous at the sight. The weather had been strange since Christmas, but I felt like it was something more than strange weather patterns. My mind started drifting to how school would be over soon, and I was excited to see mom again.

Percy finally came outside. Grover and I had sat on the edge of the fountain, to get away from the freaks we call our classmates.

"Detention?" Grover asked.

"Nah," Percy said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he would lay off me sometimes. I mean—I'm not a genius."

I laughed. "You could say that again, Percy," I said.

"Like you're any smarter than me," he said.

I huffed, knowing he was right. I opened my lunch bag that contained some candy that I had snuck into my dorm, and a sandwich.

"Can I have your apple?" I heard Grover ask Percy.

I ate my candy happily, until I looked at Percy. He was watching the cabs drive by, no doubt thinking about going and see mom, like I had earlier.

"Don't," I say as I put my hand on his shoulder.

"I know," he said. "I just wish that we could see her more often."

I nodded in agreement, silently ending our conversation. I looked over and saw that Mr. Brunner had parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he ate a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized café table.

When I turn back, I see Percy start to unwrap his sandwich when he stops. I see Nancy standing in front of him with her friends, and watch her dump her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.

"Oops." She grinned at Percy with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were an orange like someone spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.

I could tell Percy was having a hard time keeping his cool, like I was. I don't remember what happened next, as my mind had gone blank.

Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy and Ebony pushed me!"

Mrs. Dodds appeared next to us.

Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see—"

"—the water—"

"—like it grabbed her—"

I had no idea what they were talking about. All I knew was that Percy and I were in trouble again, making every year have a field trip gone wrong.

As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on us. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if we'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey—"

"I know," Percy grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."  
"Percy!" I hissed, knowing he should not have said that.

"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.

"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. _I_ pushed her."

Percy stared at him, stunned. I simply raised an eyebrow, impressed he would stand up for us like that.

She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.

"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.

"But—"

"You— _will_ —stay—here."

Grover looked at us desperately.

"It's okay man," Percy told him.

"Thanks for trying," I added.

"Honeys," Mrs. Dodds barked at us. _"Now."_

Nancy Bobofit smirked.

Percy and I gave her our deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare. Then we turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at us to come on.

"Am I imagining this," I said slowly, "or did she move up there really fast?"

"If you imagined it, I must have too," Percy said.

I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know, I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank space left behind it. The school counselor told Percy and me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.

I wasn't so sure.

We went after Mrs. Dodds.

Halfway up the steps, Percy glanced back.

When he did that, I swear Mrs. Dodds disappeared right before my very eyes, in between a blink of my eye.

What does she want from us? To buy Nancy a new shirt?

But apparently that wasn't the plan.

We followed her deeper into the museum. When we finally caught up with her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.

Except for the three of us, the gallery was empty.

That was a bit strange, considering there was people other than us in this gallery earlier. I had a gut feeling something was very, very wrong here.

Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.

Okay, now I knew for sure something was extremely wrong here.

"Percy…" I said.

"You've been giving us problems, honeys," she said.

"Yes, ma'am," Percy said.

Really? He had to say that?

She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you think you could get away with it?"

The looks in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.

Okay, now I'm really thinking she is not normal. Or even human, if that's possible.

"I'll—I'll try harder, ma'am," Percy said.

"We are not fools, Percy and Ebony Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you two will suffer less pain."

Pain? Now I was scared.

"Well?" she demanded, after a moment of silence.

"Ma'am, I don't…" I said.

"Your time is up," she hissed.

Uh-oh.

Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacker melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. At least I was right about that.

She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice us to ribbons.

If possible, things got weirder.

Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.

"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen in the air.

Mrs. Dodds lunged at me, while Percy caught the pen.

I screamed as I felt talons scrape my arm. I had been trying to dodge her, but one of my attempts was not successful.

I saw Percy catch the sword.

Wait, sword?

Mrs. Dodds spun towards us with a murderous look in her eyes.

I had run behind my brother, after getting scraped by the talons. I was now holding my arm, thinking about how we were going to die, at twelve years old, in a museum by our crazy pre-algebra teacher.

Percy's hands were shaking so badly, I was surprised he didn't drop the sword.

"Die, honey!"

She flew straight at us.

Percy swung the sword, as if he had been using it for years and was a natural thing to do.

The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed through her body as if she were made of water.

Then I heard a hissing noise.

Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if the two glowing red eyes were still watching us.

We were alone.

Percy had a ballpoint pen in his hand. There were no scratches on my arm.

Mr. Brunner wasn't there. The only person in here besides me was Percy.

I hugged him, almost bursting into tears, because I was so scared.

"We're safe," Percy said, as if he were trying to convince himself more than me.

His hands were still trembling.

We went back outside.

It had started to rain.

Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her friends. When she saw us, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butts."

"Who?" I said.

"Our _teacher_. Duh!"

I looked at Percy, confused. We didn't have a teacher named Mrs. Kerr. He asked Nancy what she was talking about.

She rolled her eyes and turned away.

Percy asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.

He said, "Who?"

But he had paused first, and he wouldn't look Percy or I in the eye, so we thought he was messing with us.

"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."

Thunder boomed overhead. I shrieked, as I was terrified of thunderstorms. Percy put a comforting hand on my arm.

I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he never moved.

We went over to him.

He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."

Percy handed Mr. Brunner his pen.

"Sir," he said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"

He stared at him blankly.

"The other chaperone," I said. "Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."

He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, Ebony, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thanks to all that have read my story. Any reviews (hateful comments as well) are appreciated, because it lets me know that you took the time to let me know how you felt about my story. Also, thank you to those who favorited/followed my story so far.**

 **Review responses (from time of chapter upload):**

 **Guest #1: I was not aware that another fan fiction had a character named Ebony, but it's a little late to change the name now.**

 **Guest #2: I am sorry that you hate this, but it is your own decision on what you want to read. I chose the name Ebony for a specific reason. Yes, I know the name means black, but I imagine that Sally was surprised that she was having twins when she gave birth to Percy and Ebony and had to come up with a name on the spot for her daughter. I imagine that Ebony had been born with a full head of her black hair, which then inspired Sally to name her Ebony, because of her beautiful black hair.**

 **REMINDER: I would appreciate it very much if you guys, the readers, could help me think of a pairing for Ebony. I would like to know soon, because then if the character were to be at camp during the course of the first book, I could have Ebony meet the guy and become friends or something similar to that. If you do leave a review on who you want, I would be very, very happy.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not, have, or ever will own the amazing Percy Jackson series. They belong to Rick Riordan, the person who dreamed up this amazing series. Ebony Jackson's character does belong to me, though.**

Three Old Ladies Knit The Socks Of Death

I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. For the entire rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some type of trick on Percy and me.

I had given up hope that people actually would remember Mrs. Dodds a week after the museum trip. Percy… not so much.

Percy would occasionally spring up a Mrs. Dodds reference but whoever he brought it up to would stare at him like he was a psycho.

I had never been so confused in my life. I almost believed that Mrs. Dodds had never existed, except for the fact that I constantly think about it since Percy can't let it slip his mind.

And not to mention the fact that Grover was a terrible liar. Percy had sprang a Mrs. Dodds reference on Grover at least once a week, but Grover always had some obvious sign of lying when he said she doesn't exist.

It makes me feel like I'm not insane for knowing she existed.

The freak weather had also been continuing. One night, there was a thunderstorm so I had been up with Percy in his room when the windows in his dorm room blew out. I don't remember being more terrified during a storm when that one happened. Then, just a few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only 50 miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies was the unusual amount of small planes that had gone down in the Atlantic that year.

Percy's mood had started to become cranky and irritable, which also became my mood soon after. My grades—that I am very proud of, by the way—of Cs had slipped down to Ds. Percy got into multiple fights with Nancy Bobofit and her stupid friends, that just so happened to be roomed down the hall from me. In almost every class, Percy or me, and sometimes both, got sent out into the hallway.

Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked Percy for probably the millionth time why he was too lazy to study for spelling tests, he snapped. He called him an old sot.

The headmaster sent our mom a letter the following week saying that we were not invited back to Yancy Academy for the next year.

I can't tell you how overjoyed I was by that.

I was miserable, and Percy even more miserable than me.

We had come to a mutual agreement that we wanted to be with mom in our Upper East Side apartment, even if we had to put up with Smelly-Gabe, our obnoxious stepfather, and his dumb poker parties.

I can say, the only things I would miss at Nancy would be Grover and Mr. Brunner. I love Latin class, with all the tournament days that made me happy no matter how sour my mood was that day.

The closer exam day got, the more I tried to study, so I could make mom happy. Latin by far was the hardest subject to study for, with memorizing a whole bunch of Roman cities, differences between people with similar names. Conjugating Latin verbs was probably the easiest thing on the final, even if I only just started to understand how to do it.

I decided I needed to take a break and go see Percy, as the silence of my dorm room was killing me. I didn't get assigned a roommate, as there were an uneven amount of girls at Yancy, with rooms that only held two people at once. I had been happy at first, because not once in my life had I not had to share a room with someone, like my brother.

I walked to the boy's dorm area, taking note that it smelled faintly of sweat and dirty socks. Ew.

I knocked on the door to Percy's room, and after hearing movement but no answer, walked in, having my eyes mostly closed, because, hey. You never know what you'll find in a boy's room.

As soon as I walked in, a book hit my ribcage and I groaned. I doubled over and almost fell, because that was the amount of force that went into the book that had gotten thrown across the room.

Percy had looked up when he heard me groan. His eyes looked tired, like he had been trying to study, and that's when I looked down to see what the book's title was. _Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology,_ the book read.

"Are you all right?" Percy said worriedly as I put my hands on my knees and took a deep breath.

"I'm fine," I wheezed out, trying to catch my breath. "I only got impaled by a Greek mythology book."

"Sorry," Percy said. "I was trying to study."

Is this really Percy? Percy studying? Has the world come to an end?

"Are you sure you're Percy?" I said, squinting my eyes like I'm studying him.

"Hilarious," he said.

"You know," I started to say, "if you want help studying you could always ask Mr. Brunner."

"That's a good idea!"

"Of course it is. That's why I'm the brains for the two of us."

"Do you want to come with? I mean, you don't have to, I was just wondering."

"Nah," I said. "I only came over here to check how you were doing before getting a snack from the vending machine down the hall. I'm too tired to try and study anymore."

"Okay. See you in the Latin exam tomorrow, I guess."

I left the room and walked towards the vending machine, intent on getting some Doritos I had seen in the vending machine.

Once I get there, only one bag of the nacho cheese kind is left.

I put my money in the machine, pressed the numbers, and waited for the Doritos to drop into the collection area. The thing holding the chips moved, but stopped right before the Doritos could even fall down. I was angry, because I just spent the last of my money on a bag of Doritos that I didn't even get to eat.

I banged my fist on the machine, and a whole bunch of snacks fell down into the part of the machine that you collect your food from.

My eyes widen. I didn't think I hit the machine THAT hard…

I grab my Doritos and some candy that I like from the machine before heading back to my room, thinking about how I somehow managed to get at least half the items sitting in the front slot of the machine to fall down.

The next day, during the Latin exam, I was thinking about what happened. I tried to concentrate on my test, but with the words blurring together and my mind wandering off, I had problems focusing.

Somehow, I managed to get my test finished and see Percy getting up at the same time as me. I don't think he finished, but as we leave the three hour Latin exam, Mr. Brunner calls us back in.

"Percy, Ebony," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's…it's for the best."

His tone was kind, but I felt embarrassed and like I let him down in some way I don't know about. He had been speaking quietly, but the other kids taking the test could hear him. Nancy looked at us and smirked, before turning to Percy and making sarcastic little kissy motions with her lips.

"Okay, sir," we mumbled at the same time.

"I mean…" Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the place for the two of you. It was only a matter of time."

I had never wanted to cry more in front of people I hated than then.

My favorite teacher, who had believed in Percy and me the whole year, was telling us we were destined to get kicked out.

"Right," I said.

Percy was trembling.

"No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say… you're not normal, Percy, Ebony. That's nothing to be—"

"Thanks," I blurted.

Percy continued my statement.

"Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding us."

"Percy—"

But we were already gone.

On the last day of the term, I was packing up my room. I put all my clothes and junk into my gigantic black duffle bag.

All the other girls were squealing and shrieking as they told each other where they were going with their filthy rich snobby families for the summer. And as for me and Percy… well, we were probably going to find a job to help our mom out and find a school for next year.

They didn't approach me, as I was glaring at them when I left to go find Percy, who, of course, was near all the idiotic guys.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey, apparently Grover is riding the same bus into city as us."

"That's cool, I guess."

The whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. I suddenly thought of how whenever we left Yancy, he would always be nervous and fidgety, as if he expected something bad to happen. I had always assumed it was because he would get teased, but there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.

"Looking for Kindly Ones?" Percy said.

"For what?" I said, not knowing what he was talking about.

Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha—what do you mean?"

Percy confessed something about eavesdropping on a conversation between Grover and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam.

"Wait," I said, "why didn't you tell me about this?"

"Because," he said. "I didn't want you to be all nervous if I did tell you about it."

"Idiot," I muttered.

"How much did you hear?" Grover asked.

"Oh … not much. What's the summer solstice deadline?"

He winced. Okay, now I was really curious as to what I am missing out on.

"Look, Percy … I was just worried for the both of you. I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers…"

"Grover—"

"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you guys were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and …"

"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar."

His ears turned pink.

From his shirt pocket, he pulled out two business cards. "Just take this, okay? In case either of you need me this summer."

The fancy script on the card was murder to my dyslexic eyes, but I managed to read it. I think the card said something like:

 _Grover Underwood_

 _Keeper_

 _Half-Blood Hill_

 _Long Island, New York_

 _(800)-009-0009_

"What's Half—"

"Don't say it aloud!" Grover yelped. "That's my, um … summer address."

I couldn't believe Grover had a summer home. I mean, not to be rude or anything, he just didn't seem like a rich kid with a nice summer home.

"Okay," Percy said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion."

He nodded. "Or … or if you need me."

"Why would I need you?"

That came out really harshly. Jeez, Percy needs to get a filter on that mouth.

"Percy," I hissed.

Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, Ebony, the truth is, I—I kind of have to protect you."

I blinked, shocked.

Protect us? All year we were the ones protecting him from the bullies and he had to protect us?

"Protect us from what?" I said.

A huge grinding noise came from under our feet. Black smoke filled the dashboard and the bus smelt of rotten eggs. The driver cursed and drove the Greyhound bus to the side of the highway.

After a few minutes of clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we would all have to get off. Grover, Percy and I filed off with everyone else.

We were on a stretch of country road—no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.

I was hungry and the good-looking stuff on sale looked really good to me: heaping boxes if bloodred cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.

These socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.

Just looking at them made my stomach kind of queasy and gave me a bad feeling. I knew something was off with them, similar to Mrs. Dodds.

All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.

The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at Percy and me.

We looked at Grover and I saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.

"Grover?" Percy said. "Hey, man—"

"Tell me they're not looking you two. They are, aren't they?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"

I gave him my are-you-serious look.

"Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all."

The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors—gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath.

"We're getting back on the bus," he told us. "Come on."

"What?" Percy said.

"It's a thousand degrees in there," I whined.

"Come on!" He pried open the door, climbed inside, tried pulling me in, but I stayed outside with Percy.

Across the road, the old ladies were still watching us. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that _snip_ across four lanes of traffic. Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks.

At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.

The passengers cheered.

"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"

Once we got going, I started feeling sicker than I had earlier when watching the old ladies. I could Percy wasn't feeling too good either.

Even Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.

"Grover?"

"Yeah?"

"What are you not telling us?" Percy asked.

He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Percy, Ebony, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"

"You mean the old ladies?" Percy asked him. "What is it about them, man? They're not like … Mrs. Dodds, are they?"

His expression made it look like the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse that Mrs. Dodds. He said, "Just tell me what you saw."

"The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn," I croaked out. I was on the edge of crying from how sick I felt.

He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something that seemed older.

He said, "You saw her snip the cord."

"Yeah, so?" Percy said, making it seem like it wasn't a big deal, but his facial expression said otherwise.

"This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time."

"What last time?" I asked, panicking.

"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."

"Grover, you're scaring me," I said quietly.

"What are you talking about?" Percy asked.

"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."

We promised.

"Is this a superstition or something?" Percy asked.

No answer.

"Grover—that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?" I asked.

He looked at us mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers we'd like best on our coffins.


End file.
